ht by a white man and
his wife whose name was Westbrooks. They came to Nashville from St.
Louis, Missouri and organized a school. These two gathered
considerable money from the free and slave people who wanted to send
their children to school. They taught school about three weeks when
they suddenly disappeared.

SLAVES IN BUSINESS AND NEGROES WHO OWNED SLAVES

Slaves had more money than is generally thought. Henry Harding, a
slave with some education, was a thorough business man from beginning
to end. Everything he touched turned to money. His home in Nashville
now is as pretty a home as you want to see. He was allowed every
liberty by his owners that a free person enjoyed. He was a carpenter
and contractor. He did all the construction work on three plantations,
that of General Harding, his son's, John Harding and of David
Gavock's. One of the Hardings was his father. He was held as a slave
until Emancipation in '63. He immediately came to Nashville and went
into business building houses. When he died he had considerable
property.

Hardy Perry, a slave in Nashville, had a line of hacks and transfer
teams during slavery time. He hired his own time. Steven Boyd and Mr.
Napier kept a livery stable.

My father's father was a pioneer iron man in middle Tennessee. His
parents came from England and went to Dixon county and established
what is still known as the Napier Iron Works. He was a man of
considerable force of character and influence. He had four colored
sons and daughters. He had these sons go to school along with the
white children. When he died his will provided that they should leave
Tennessee and go to a free state or to Liberia. They went to Ohio and
lived on Walnut Hill where they bought a farm. They concluded to sell
the farm on Walnut Hill, trading it for a farm at New Richmond, Ohio.
Two of the sons went to Richmond with my grandmother, another went to
St. Louis, Mo., and my father went back to Nashville. Two of the
brothers who went to Richmond with their mother became school teachers
in Richmond. The one who went to Nashville went into the livery
business.

My father's father was a physician, having graduated from the medical
school of the University of Pennsylvania. He had great political
influence and it was through his influence that one of the governors
of Tennessee was elected.

Alice Bosley, whose husband was white, and her family owned two large
plantations south of Nashville and the other